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I've been directing for 25 years almost, and I've only directed nine films in that time because I like to be careful.
Harold Ramis
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Harold Ramis
Age: 69 †
Born: 1944
Born: November 21
Died: 2014
Died: February 24
Actor
Comedian
Director
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Screenwriter
Television Actor
Writer
Chicago
Illinois
Harold Allen Ramis
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Directed
Nine
Careful
Films
Almost
Film
Years
Time
Directing
More quotes by Harold Ramis
I collect spores, molds, and fungus.
Harold Ramis
I used to be married to a woman who pursued every spiritual trend with tremendous passion and dragged me along. I don't believe in anything. I'd seen mediums and readers.
Harold Ramis
I never read Playboy before I started working there and stopped reading it the day I quit.
Harold Ramis
I think satire is a luxury of literate middle-class people. People who are well fed and relatively secure in their beds can laugh at their troubles. They can enjoy sitcoms. For those who aren't quite so lucky, well, the irony might be lost on them.
Harold Ramis
My job is to come up with something that you like and you agree with that you would play wholeheartedly. If we disagree, I may not be doing my job correctly.
Harold Ramis
I try to measure the amount of truth in a work rather than just looking at the generic distinction between comedy and drama.
Harold Ramis
When a director writes, there's a compulsory arbitration. You have a right to challenge any of the arbitrators, but they pick three of four arbitrators who read all the drafts with no names attached and then allocate credit.
Harold Ramis
Billy Crystal knows how to make people laugh. He's got 30 years on stage... there's no telling him what's funny.
Harold Ramis
At a certain point, you have to convince the actors that you've done the right thing. The way I work, if I can't convince them, I've got to move on. I can't coerce them or browbeat them.
Harold Ramis
I did a comedy with Al Franken about his character Stuart Smalley, which was really about alcoholism and addiction and codependency. It had some painful stuff in it. When we showed it to focus groups, some of them actually said, If I want to see a dysfunctional family, I'll stay home.
Harold Ramis
My only conclusion about structure is that nothing works if you don't have interesting characters and a good story to tell.
Harold Ramis
I loved writing and performing, but the idea of doing it for a living seemed so remote. But I eventually let it devolve to the point where it was the only thing I could do.
Harold Ramis
It's like the old rule-if you introduce a gun into the first act of a play, it's going to be used in the third act. So if you do a movie about criminals, you have to accept there's going to be Some action.
Harold Ramis
If you're doing six takes, instead of doing six variations on the same words, why not just throw out the words and make them up as you go along, if you're comfortable with it? It gives the movies a slightly rangier feeling, and more of an accidental feel, but it also makes them edgier.
Harold Ramis
I always think that the writer is doing the vast majority of the director's work, in a sense. If you're a writer who is also going to direct, you're doing all your preparation: You're already visualizing everything, you're imagining how the lines are going to be read, you see the blocking in your head, and you know the rhythm and the pacing.
Harold Ramis
Life has all of these contradictory feelings and contradictory results. People spend their whole lives struggling to get what they think they want, and even if they get it, they find that it's either not what they wanted, or it comes with so many unwanted consequences. We're always shut off from pure joy.
Harold Ramis
Films are big hits when they touch a lot of people. Things are not funny in a vacuum, they're funny because we respond to some personal dislocation, some embarrassment, some humiliation, some pain we've suffered, or some desire we have.
Harold Ramis
Find the most talented person in the room and if it's not you, go stand next to him. Hang out with him. try to be helpful.
Harold Ramis
Most comedy is not very ambitious. You probably can't name more than a handful of comedies that would qualify for Best Picture.
Harold Ramis
No one will laugh at how great things are for somebody.
Harold Ramis
